Technologist Track Session 1: CMR Technical Methods (2019)-Cine imaging pulse sequences

Cine imaging pulse sequences - Understanding SSFP and GRE

Video Transcription

Video Summary

The speaker explains cardiac MRI bright-blood imaging, focusing on spoiled gradient echo and balanced SSFP sequences. Gradient echo uses a flip angle under 90° with spoiler gradients, producing T1-weighted bright-blood images that are fast but more vulnerable to metal, field inhomogeneity, and flow artifacts. SSFP is also a gradient echo sequence, but it preserves steady-state transverse magnetization with a very short TR, giving higher SNR/CNR and mixed T2/T1 weighting, so blood appears brighter and valves are often seen better. SSFP is faster and usually preferred for cine imaging, but it can suffer from banding and off-resonance artifacts, especially with implants or at higher field strengths. When artifacts are problematic, switching to gradient echo can improve image quality, though with lower contrast and longer breath-holds. The talk also covers cine acquisition, retrospective ECG gating, temporal/spatial resolution trade-offs, and view sharing.

Keywords

cardiac MRI

bright-blood imaging

spoiled gradient echo

balanced SSFP

cine imaging